Sightlines · reception
How Aftersun was received
2022 · Charlotte Wells · Aftersun on Sightlines
The arc
No reappraisal needed — it detonated on arrival. A tiny debut premiering in Cannes Critics' Week 2022, it ended the year topping Sight and Sound's best-of-2022 poll and has only tightened its grip since, now firmly lodged in the Letterboxd Top 250.
What’s debated
The perennial fight: is it one of the most quietly devastating films ever made, or a slow holiday video that Letterboxd talked itself into? — with a side-debate raging over how literally to read its ambiguous ending.
Its footprint
The strobe-lit 'Under Pressure' dance scene became one of the most referenced needle-drops of the decade — for a whole generation of film fans, the Bowie/Queen song now belongs to this movie. Its afterlife is measured in one-line Letterboxd reviews of pure devastation and 'films that emotionally wrecked me' lists.
Where it stands
The consensus great debut of the 2020s — instant Letterboxd-era canon and the standing 'have you recovered yet?' rite of passage.
Did you know? It was produced by Barry Jenkins' company Pastel, which championed Wells off the back of her short films — and Paul Mescal's Best Actor Oscar nomination came for a first-time director's debut feature.
Named by the director
- Unrelated (2007) — Wells pointed to Joanna Hogg's debut — another British first feature about family and memory on a Mediterranean holiday — as a touchstone.
- Yi Yi (2000) — Wells cited Edward Yang's film when discussing her precise, patiently held compositions and the texture of memory.
- The Long Day Closes (1992) — Wells has spoken of her deep affinity for Terence Davies' memory-film, a key reference for Aftersun's autobiographical texture.